Around 1937, the year before her father died, Cossington Smith painted Bonfire in the bush. The work locates him at the bottom of their garden with her sisters Madge and Diddy, engaged in one of his favourite pastimes – burning leaves in a bonfire. In its feeling for family ritual on the cusp of the domesticated garden and the Australian bush, this painting later meant a great deal to the author Patrick White who initially acquired it.